1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to means to keep doors closed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Means of keeping doors closed date back to pre-history, probably to the first time a cave man put a rock at the entrance to a cave. The typical door today has a rotating handle which removes and inserts various types of retaining means into a recess in the door jamb. Most typically, interior doors do not lock except perhaps in areas like a bathroom.
Various types of levers and handles have been utilized to perform similar tasks not only on doors between rooms but on a variety of other doors such as automobile doors, refrigerator doors, etc.
Refrigerators have occasionally been abandoned, and they make an interesting place for children, somewhat of an attractive nuisance. As a result, a substantial number of children have found abandoned refrigerators, opened the doors from outside, then enter the refrigerator to hide and close the doors and then suffocated and died. This led to a demand for some other way to lock refrigerator doors which resulted in magnetic coupling means.
Magnetic couplings means are inherently more efficient than the typical prior art door, because all you have to do is close the door and it will stay closed. You do not have any mechanical moving parts, and you do not have to rotate the handle or make sure that a latch catches. Magnetic coupling means would make a door easy to open and close from either side.
Unfortunately, prior art magnetic retaining means for doors are not much utilized in internal doors in houses and alike for a substantial number of reasons. One of the major reasons is the fact that magnetic latching means as taught by the prior art are not easily adjustable. The prior art door with a rotating handle requires a certain amount of skill to open and close the door. A small child of the age of one who can walk for example, does not normally have the skill to open a door so that the internal door can be considered child safe and the child can be relied on not to be able to open the door. In contrast, if all one has to do is push against a door, such a child could open the door or, in the alternative, the door would have to be pushed on very hard by an adult for opening.
What is needed but not disclosed by the prior art, is some simple adjustable magnetic latching means that would in effect retain most of the advantages of the prior art doors while adding the advantages inherent to magnetic latching means. Applicants have searched for such adjustable magnetic latching means in the prior art but have not found it. Such an adjustable latch would be particularly useful in areas such as hospitals offices, residences and restaurants where it is necessary to go through doors while carrying something, because the door could be pushed open at appropriate selected times. It would also be a substantial convenience in that the door handle need not be rotated. There would be vast improvements in durability because of the vast reduction in moving parts. With a strong magnet, it could be used as a lock.